I had rested my death knight for a few days to get back up to the maximum rested xp.
I had a plan... granted, it wasn't any kind of cunning plan nor a particularly impressive one but I had a plan nonetheless.
So one dark dank evening with my level 66 DK sitting in shatt I decided I had had enough of outland. I had spent about 8 levels in the place after the DK starter quests had put me on 58 and decided the level 69+ mobs in the howling fjord would be easy enough for my nigh-indestructible blood DK.
I hopped on the zepelin in undercity, arrived shortly after in vengeance landing, took a quick note of the fact that there were no quests for me to pick up (start at 68) and headed off into the wilderness to do something that has always been regarded as an inefficient way of progression:
I started grinding mobs.
It didn't take long for my DK to light up like a christmas tree having gone from nearly no experience gathered to a full level's worth in what seemed to be a fairly short grinding session (I should've timed it).
I scratched my head for a moment wondering what happened. You'd think that straight forward grinding shouldn't be able to keep up or even come close to questing in outland but it did remarkably well.
Why I wondered... and the answer was simply: double xp.
The xp you gain for killing a normal mob in northrend is approximately twice as much as the xp you get from a normal mob in outland. Given that outland quests give approximately 10k xp per completion you're looking at 5 extra kills you'd have to make to make up for a regular outland quest.
But grinding generally also means you don't have that annoying travel time from and to the various quest locations.
In other words, the travel time in outland to complete quests completely negated the advantage questing in outland had in comparison to just plain grinding northrend mobs.
The additional advantages are obvious: Even though you go through rested xp like crazy (which is of no consequence to the altaholic that is me) your income practically doubles since you're all of a sudden getting all kinds of northrend valuables. You start collecting greens that you can almost immediately put on once you're done with your grinding session and you get all kinds of resources that are in fairly high demand (meats, borean leather, frostweave to name a few).
I had effectively ruined my stay in outland with spoils of war that should've been completely out of reach.
I settled on grinding the rest of the way to 68 when the northrend quests would become available and opted out of outland on my DK on a permanent basis.
For most of my more powerful characters this means I can enter outland at 58 and leave at 66 provided I have a full 1.5 bars of rested xp to grind out some mobs in northrend (something that is rarely an issue if you have 10 or so characters).
To a certain extend this is kind of saddening. Outland has become little more than a mandatory stop-off on your way to northrend lasting a mere 8 levels from the time you step foot in deathknight peninsula.
I had always enjoyed outland for what it was, but there's no real motivation to level there past level 66, not if you take into account how much less money / xp you will be earning while there.
I already have seen most of the quests and storylines and I am sure I will return to play them all again on one char on the other, but I would've much rather experience the place fully without that nagging feeling that I am going at half-speed collecting stuff that has hardly any value.
So much for outland?
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6 comments:
It's an interesting idea for some of my alts, but since my Dk is my first horde toon, I'm enjoying a brand new face of Outland way too much to leave 2 lvls early.
Hehe yeah I tend to treasure 'newish' things myself. My mage on the other hand hit 66 and immediately made the switch. He's already 2 bubbles richer in the 10 mins I spent in northrend and has a fair few borean leathers to show for.
Mind you he doesn't have it as easy as the DK but I am definitely enjoying the speedup even though it'll slow way down as I get further into my 70s.
I will probably do the same with my DK (granted he's 69 at present). I just havent had the desire to go through shadowmoon or Area-52 to get that last level. . .
I had a similar experience with my DK. But, it didn't hit me until I found myself trying to figure out if I would go Scryers or Aldor. While I was looking at the various benefits of each I suddenly realized I wouldn't be in Outland long enough to grind the rep.
It was at that point that I realized my stay in Outland was going to be short. It is a shame, as I have so many fond memories of Outland on my other alts.
But...one can say the same for the 50+ areas in the old world. My warlock is 53 now. I know I'm going to go to Outland with him as soon as he hits 58. That means I'll skip all the pre-BC high end areas.
It's a trickle down effect.
I've always felt that when DPS specced, grinding mobs has always been fastest. The time I spend running from the mobs to the quest giver I find myself thinking: "This run took me 3 minutes. At 20 seconds a kill, I could have killed 9 enemies. Turning in this quest only gave me 10 kills worth of experience, plus now I have to run back to another hunting area. I should have just kept killing."
Granted there are exceptions, one of which is one that I wanted to bring up specifically. At level 66, you could go to the Kirin'Var Village in Netherstorm. That is the one place I would recommend going before making your trip to Northrend. There are so many quests there packed into a little tiny place, and you can be done with the bulk of them in an hour or two before moving on.
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